


A Change in the Landscape

by Missy1978



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Cheating, College, F/M, Margaery has Sansa's back, Post-Break Up, Sandor the artist
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-13
Updated: 2020-09-13
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:07:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,848
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26442448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Missy1978/pseuds/Missy1978
Summary: Sansa has come home to the north after breaking up with Joffrey. She just needs to clear her head, maybe a hike will help.
Relationships: Sandor Clegane/Sansa Stark
Comments: 7
Kudos: 79





	A Change in the Landscape

**Author's Note:**

> Sandor as an artist. Sure, why not?

Her hamstrings were killing her. At least she thought they were her hamstrings, it’s not as if she’s a doctor or anything. But Sansa knew hamstrings were in the back of the legs, and the back of her legs were throbbing; consequently, her hamstrings were killing her. 

What had possessed her to think she could hike all the way to the summit? Sansa knew she was just being stubborn when she snapped back at Arya to ‘mind her own business’ when Arya suggested an easier hike for her first time. Well, she was paying the price now! 

All Sansa wanted to do was be alone and clear her head; getting some exercise was just an extra added bonus. The past few months had been grueling, no scratch that; they’d been hellish. The break up with Joffrey when she’d discovered that he’d been cheating on her with dozens of other women had been devastating. The life she had planned out for herself and Joffrey was gone. All she could think to do was pack up all her belongings and return north to ‘lick her wounds’ and move on with her life. 

Her family was thrilled to see her and have her home. What Sansa discovered once she was there, was that none of her family had ever liked Joffrey. They only tolerated him because she was in love with him. Sansa wasn’t sure whether to be angry or relieved; she went with relieved. Not having to explain or justify herself to her parents or siblings was comforting; but why hadn’t they said something to her sooner? That had been the question she posed to Arya. 

“Why didn’t anyone tell me they hated Joffrey?” 

Arya shrugged “would you have listened?” 

She had her there. Thinking back to what she had been like when she moved south to go to University. Sansa couldn’t wait to move south, in her mind, she was never coming back, she was meant to live in the south, she just knew it! The south was so much more colorful, exotic, warmer (obviously), and had many more opportunities then she would have had in the north. University had been wonderful, so many different people from so many different backgrounds; Sansa was entranced by every new experience. 

Sansa immediately made a whole new group of friends, joined every club, jumped wholeheartedly into every activity; it was as if she was making up for lost time. In Sansa’s mind, she was. It was during her second year at University that Sansa met Joffrey. 

***** 

Wearing tiny shorts and tank tops, Sansa and her new best friend, Margaery Tyrell, were on their way to a charity car wash when they ran into a group of male students. Their ringleader, Joffrey Baratheon, zeroed his attention in on Sansa. 

Focusing his eyes exclusively on Sansa, Joffrey quipped “Ladies, where are you off to this beautiful Saturday morning?” 

Margaery piped up “we’re washing cars to raise money and awareness for childhood illiteracy, maybe you’d like to come by later and get your car washed and contribute.” 

Still looking at Sansa Joffrey replied “Maybe I will. Joffrey Baratheon, and you are?” 

“Margaery Tyrell, and this is my best friend Sansa Stark” 

“Margaery, Sansa” dragging his eyes away from Sansa “it’s a pleasure to meet you, I’ll be sure to stop by later” 

Margaery and Sansa continued down the hallway and as soon as Joffrey and his group were out of hearing distance Margaery turned to Sansa “you definitely got his attention; do you know who he is?” 

Sansa frowned “No” 

“Joffrey Baratheon, he’s the heir to the Baratheon and Lannister shipping corporation. Someday, once his grandfather Tywin Lannister retires, he’ll be the CEO. If he asks you out, which I think he definitely will, you’d better say yes!” 

Sansa giggled “oh, I don’t know that he definitely will, but I’ll keep your advice in mind.” 

The car wash was fun. Sansa and her sorority sisters raised hundreds of dollars for their charity, were featured on the local news and the best part was that right before the end of the event Joffrey showed up with his Porsche. Pulling into the parking lot, Joffrey leapt out of the car and sauntered up to Sansa. 

“So, I’m here, are you going to wash and buff my car?” he said wagging his eyebrows at Sansa. 

Sansa blushed at the inference and chuckled “we’d be happy to wash your car.” The sorority surrounded the car and got to work vacuuming, hosing it down, soaping it up, rinsing it, and cleaning the windows. Determined to be brave and flirty, Sansa turned to Joffrey “this is a beautiful car, maybe you can take me for a ride sometime?” 

Joffrey smirked (in the coming years, Sansa would learn to hate that look, but at the car wash she didn’t know any better) “I’d love to take you for a spin, why don’t you give me you number, and I’ll give you a call” 

And so, it began; the relationship that would define the rest of Sansa’s time in the south. Sansa soon found out that dating Joffrey Baratheon was hard work. There was no more laying around the sorority house in jeans and a t-shirt; she always had to be ready and impeccably dressed in case Joffrey wanted to go somewhere. AND, she never got to initiate their time together, she had to wait for Joffrey to call her, or just drop by; and she could never, NEVER just show up his place. 

Most weekends she would be expected to be Joffrey’s ‘arm candy’ at his family’s business functions. When her friends were getting ready for football games or fraternity parties or pub crawls; Sansa would be dressed to the nines and bored to death hobnobbing with people old enough to be her grandparents. Sansa endured it all because she was in love. It didn’t matter that she was missing out on all the things that university students do, because she was building a life with her future husband. She was molding herself into the perfect corporate wife. Little did she know there was so much more going on behind the scenes. 

When Joffrey graduated, a year ahead of Sansa, he insisted that she move out of the sorority house and into a condominium with him. Her last year of school was spent balancing schoolwork and running a household. Planning dinners replaced charity car washes. Cocktail parties instead of fraternity parties; it was as if they were already married but without the benefit of vows and the security that went with them. 

Sansa found that little had changed once they were living together; everything was still at Joffrey’s convenience. While she was still technically a member of her sorority, Sansa could no longer participate in any activity that would negatively impact Joffrey’s life or comfort level. Sansa ALWAYs had to be ready, just in case Joffrey wanted to do something or go somewhere. But, If Joffrey wanted to do something with his friends, that was completely okay. Many nights Sansa would wait around the condo for Joffrey to come home; only for him to show up hours later, drunk, having gone out with his buddies and ‘forgetting’ to call and let Sansa know not to hold dinner. 

The breaking point came shortly after Sansa had graduated. Right after her family had gone back north, after witnessing Sansa be awarded her Art-History degree, meeting and socializing with Joffrey’s family, and bringing boxes of items from Sansa’s childhood room that she would need to for her new life in the south; Sansa ‘caught’ Joffrey in a compromising position, meaning she caught him fucking someone. 

Joffrey had ‘graciously’ allowed Sansa to cut loose with one final evening out with her sorority sisters right before they all moved on to their new lives; even allowing her to stay at Margaery’s one last time. However, he hadn’t counted on Margaery hooking up with a random guy at the bar, leaving Sansa nowhere to sleep. She arrived home late, giggly, tipsy, trying to be quiet so she didn’t wake up Joffrey. What she discovered when she entered their bedroom was Joffrey pounding into some woman who was on her hands and knees on their bed. 

Shocked sober, Sansa screamed “Joffrey, what the fuck are you doing?” 

Without missing a beat he ‘withdrew’ and responded “I would think that’s obvious” 

Without another word Sansa turned, left the bedroom and made her way to the front door of the condo, Joffrey in quick pursuit. “where do you think you’re going?” he screamed at her. 

“Away from here, away from you. How could you? I thought we were happy, I thought we’d get married at some point. Why are you doing this?” 

Joffrey smirked at her “Babe, don’t be naïve, there’s enough of me to go around. I’ll probably marry you, but there are lots of women out there that will want to be with me. You’re just going to have to get used to it.” 

Sansa could not believe what she was hearing. This was not how she saw her life going, nor was it how normal people had relationships. How had she overlooked what was really going on? 

“So, she’s not the first?” 

“As I said, there’s plenty of me to go around, I can’t limit myself to just one woman, wife or not.” 

Sansa blinked, then blinked again, then reared back and punched Joffrey in the nose; he went down in a heap, blood spurting everywhere. “There may be plenty of you to go around, but I’m not interested. My idea of a relationship is one man, one woman. If that’s not for you, I wish you would have told me, rather than show me. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to get out of here.” With that Sansa turned, opened the door and left. Leaving it ajar so anyone walking by could see Joffrey: bloody, naked, in a pile on the floor. 

She managed to hold it together until she arrived at Margaery’s. Luckily Margaery’s new ‘friend’ realized the seriousness of the situation, quickly got dressed and left, promising to call Margery the following day. Margaery rolled her eyes at Sansa and whispered that he was okay, but not ‘see him a second time, okay.’ 

“I can’t believe he cheated on me, not just once, but it sounds like all the time. How did I not see this?” 

Margaery handed Sansa a cup of tea and wrapped her in a blanket “you know we see what we want to see. Luckily this happened now and not later down the road when you were married, or gods forbid had kids.” Sansa gave her a watery smile, of course she was right, but what happened next? 

“I guess I have to tell my family” 

“somehow I don’t think they’ll mind” 

“what do you mean?” 

“Honey, I hate to tell you this, most of your friends only tolerated Joffrey because you were in love. I bet your family feels the same way. Even you would admit that before tonight he was a bit of an asshole at times, right?” Sansa nodded slightly “Not that you needed to see THAT, but this is probably the best thing that could have happened. If he hadn’t gotten caught red handed, you probably would never have broken up with him” Sansa blushed realizing Margaery was probably right. “Now that you’ve had the crappy relationship and break-up, you can move on and meet the ONE.” 

“The one?” 

“Yea, then man you’re meant to be with. The one that realizes how special you are. The one that doesn’t take you for granted. You know the one.” 

Sansa smiled, yea the one! 

***** 

Sansa FINALLY reached the summit; chest heaving, lungs burning, hamstrings ready to snap. She collapsed on a log with a loud groan and reached for her water bottle, took a huge swig, almost draining it. 

“are you okay?” 

Sansa screamed and whirled around to discover a man, an extremely large, kind of handsome (oh is that a scar) man; standing by an easel, obviously painting the landscape. “Oh, my gods, you scared the SHIT out of me!” 

The man threw his head back and barked out a loud roar of laughter “well, you scared the SHIT out of me too. I thought I’d have the place to myself, only to have you show up and almost die on the spot.” 

Sansa laughed “sorry about that. I wouldn’t have been quite so dramatic if I’d known I had an audience.” 

“No harm done; I was getting ready to take a break anyway. Fortunately, I’d already put my brush down, so I didn’t mess up what I'd done so far.” 

“What are you painting?” The handsome, tall, scarred man smiled and waved his arm at the view. “Oh, duh, what a stupid thing to ask. Can I see?” 

“sure, can you walk yet, or do I need to carry you over?” 

“very funny” 

Sansa stood, winced, and walked over to the easel. It was beautiful, and familiar. He had taken what was already an amazing landscape of sky, clouds, trees, and way down below a lake; and somehow made it more mind-blowing then the actual view. His technique was unique, and Sansa knew she’d seen it before, but where? 

“this is lovely, do I know you? have I seen your work before?” 

The man flushed (it was adorable) “maybe. I did a series of lemons and lemon trees using this technique, it was pretty popular a few years ago.” 

“Oh my gods, you’re Sandor Clegane! I had your ‘lemon tree in Tuscany’ hanging in my dorm room for years! I can’t believe it’s you! I studied your work in my contemporary art history class at university. What are you doing here in the north? I thought I’d read that you relocated to the west. Oh, sorry, I sound like a stalker, don't I? I’m Sansa” she concluded with a shrug. 

Sandor reached out and shook Sansa’s hand “I was spending some time on the Quiet Isle, and a friend mentioned that I might want to do a series in the north. It is beautiful up here, but it is kind of one note, one color.” He gestured again to the view “too much gray and black, I need to inject some color.” Sandor regarded Sansa for a minute, then suddenly he grinned. “Would you be interested in being in my painting? Your hair could be just the color I need, it would be an amazing contrast to everything else.” 

“What would I have to do?” 

“Just sit back on your log” Sansa snorted and jokingly smacked Sandor’s arm “with your back to me. I’ll paint you looking at the view. What do you think?” 

“Well, it’ll give me time to recover from my hike, so why not.” 

***** 

**One Year Later**

Sansa read aloud from the article in the local paper “Sandor Clegane has done it again. Sales of his new series of paintings ‘the north’ quickly surpassed his lemon tree series. A special showing of the series will be held at the Winterfell Art House this Saturday night from 7:00-9:00pm. Clegane and his muse, the redhead that appears in each of his paintings in the series, will be in attendance.” Sansa closed the newspaper and smirked at Sandor. “Well it looks like the bad boy of the art world has done it again” she concluded with a laugh. 

Sandor rolled his eyes and took a large gulp of his coffee “yea, whatever. I’m sure they’re all going to show up to see you. The muse, especially one as beautiful as you, is always more intriguing than the artist.” Sansa smacked Sandor’s arm in gest then kissed him on the cheek. 

“I don’t care who they come to see. I’ll sip wine, eat cheese and listen to them for as long as I need to; as long as they appreciate how beautiful your pieces are. And I’m not just talking about my hair!” She leaned over and kissed him again. 

It had been a whirlwind from the moment Sansa posed for Sandor. She’d sat for three hours on the log that day, not moving, so Sandor could paint his landscape. They talked, and had gotten to know each other, finding they had a lot in common. But even more, they realized pretty quickly that they wanted to spend more time together. What started out as a favor, morphed into a friendship, then a romance, then an entire series of paintings. 

Over the next year, Sandor and Sansa traveled throughout the north; Sandor painting landscapes completely devoid of people except for the redhead who appeared in each. Sansa learned what it felt like to be cherished and loved. How could she ever have thought that she’d had that with Joffrey? What they had was NOTHING compared to what she now had with Sandor. Now she knew what Margaery had been talking about when she told Sansa about the one. Sandor was it, he was the ONE.


End file.
